


All or Nothing

by icarus_chained



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Choices, F/M, Family, Fate, Father-Daughter Relationship, Magic, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Prompt Fic, Romance, Villains, villains in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 23:23:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6260155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A glimpse of how things might potentially have gone if Cora hadn't removed her own heart. If she had chosen the love she had for Rumpelstiltskin, and borne him the child she'd promised him, and made him realise he loved her too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All or Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an AU prompt: "Cora doesn't take out her own heart." Probably a lot happier and relatively healthier than that would actually have gone, mind, but I still adore Cora and the twisted, ferocious thing she and Rumple had. If she'd chosen to turn her formidable will to that, instead of power, I can't help but wonder how it would have turned out. What she said to Regina, "You would have been enough". I would have liked to see that.

For three weeks after Regina was born, a queen by name and by nature if not by right, Rumpelstiltskin drew away from them. It should have been strange. He had longed for a child, for _this_ child, so much. He had bargained for her, come to Cora in the first place just to win her. Everything that had happened, all their love and their lust and their pride, had begun with the promise of the babe in Cora's arms. For him to draw away from that, for him to flinch and to hide and to cower from it, should have been strange.

It wasn't. Not to her. Cora had seen the expression on his face when he first beheld their daughter, seen the awe and then the shadow as he held Regina in his arms. She knew that expression. She knew it deeply and she knew it well. She knew exactly what it meant.

It was the look of someone who had to choose which heart to take in hand.

It made sense, of course. He'd wanted Regina for a _reason_. There had been no thought of love at the start, nor even lust. Business only, gold for the promise of a child, futures traded against each other. A mercenary interaction on both their parts. He'd never meant to love her. He'd never meant to father her child. The Dark One had never planned to suffer so simple and so devastating a weakness as love could so easily be.

But he had. He had suffered. He had weakened. He had wanted, and loved, and held. He had fathered a child. He had fathered _his_ child. And now the girl, the woman he wished to use to shape his future, was not some faceless babe bought in gold, but his own flesh and blood, born of his own passion and love. Now, seeing his daughter, he had to make the choice, even as Cora had, which heart he wished to tear from what chest.

It was almost amusing, she thought, cradling Regina to her breast as she sat at the window and watched him prowl the gardens far beneath her. No, not almost. It was perfectly amusing. Such a delicious irony, from all angles and in all ways.

Love is a weakness, Xavier had told her. She'd known all along that he was right. She'd known, even as she'd drawn her hand away from her own chest, even as she'd let her own heart keep beating, even as she allowed that same weakness to take hold and take her power from her. She'd known, even as she chose Rumpelstiltskin, that it was weakness that brought her to it, and weakness that would lay them both low before the end.

He couldn't harm Regina. Cora knew that, knew it in the heart her weakness had granted her. The Dark One she'd once thought so strong and so wicked and so powerful did not have it in him to hold a child in his arms and bring her harm. Not his own child. Never, ever that. All his plans, all his desperate needs and wants, were broken before that weakness. All his power was made a lie. Weakness was the heart of him, even as it had been the heart of her. They had succumbed to it at each other's hand. There was no help for it now.

He might hate her for that, she mused idly. She had thought for a while to hate him, when she had first realised how weak he truly was beneath his power. It would be easy enough. Hate was a habit for them both, and easy enough to apply to each other. There was a cowering thing in him, a mewling, fragile thing that wanted nothing more than to please, and she might easily hate him for it. There was a terrible thing in her, something that seized and held and chained, and he might hate her for that in his turn. They might destroy each other, carve each other to trembling pieces with the hearts they'd traded between them, and it would be the easiest thing in all the world. It would take no particular strength at all.

But no, she thought. No. There was only ever so much weakness she could bear, and that was far beyond it. She had _chosen_ him. She had held her own heart in her hand, she had weighed it, and she had found it worth keeping. She held their daughter now, in that same hand. She held Regina, she held their queen and their heart, and _that_ was worth it too. That was enough, more than enough. A child. She had chosen a heart, she had chosen a child, she had chosen him and _his_. It was a choice born from weakness, but it would be carried out with _strength_ , with power, with all the ferocity they both possessed. If she had to shake him to accomplish that, if she had to beat him and break him and take his heart from his chest to show him the weight of it, she would see to that. 

Cora had never run from her choices in her life. She had never backed down, never apologised, never bent a knee without wishing vengeance for the necessity of it. And she _knew_ him. For all his weakness, all his frailty, she knew him too. She knew the fury in his heart that wove gold from the memory of being made to bend. She knew the snarling, ferocious will that formed the Dark One, that had made power from weakness for all these centuries. She knew, she _knew_ , that there was strength in him, enough to make this right, enough to snatch back his future and keep their daughter whole at the same time. She would help. She would destroy worlds for his sake, if it gave him strength enough for that. She was stronger than him, if less powerful. She always had been.

She only had to make him see it. She only had to take his heart, to hold it and seize it and remind him of its virtue. She only had to take him by the throat, place their daughter in his arms, and have him _look_ at her. She only had to remind him of what they had chosen, what they had made, what all their power and their mutual weakness had brought forth.

She only had to promise him, her hand on her own heart, that all that he desired would be his, if only he found the strength to choose her too, and let her seize it for him.

He was so frail, her Dark One. Trembling and terrified beneath his dragonskin coat. Such a fragile thing, such a bad bargain to have made. Not a monster, or a demon, or a king. Just a man, so small a man, wanting so badly to be loved. It had been the height of weakness to have chosen him. It had been so perfectly, incredibly foolish.

It had been, in truth, the best choice she ever made. 

She stood then. Impatient, decisive, demanding. She cradled Regina close against her heart, stood to her feet and summoned him. Three weeks was long enough. Three weeks was more than that. He would wallow in weakness and despair for all eternity if she let him. Cora had neither the time nor the patience for that. He could despair over lost futures later, when they had exhausted all hope of achieving them. For now, all he had lost was one chance, one future, and in return he had gained a daughter, and he had gained _her_. He would know the value of that. He would understand how much that tipped the balance in her favour if she had to _make_ him. She had weighed her heart in her hand, and then she had given it to him, and he would damn well show her gratitude for that if it killed him.

And it might. She thought that, looking at him, watching his face as he brought himself to her side and then simply stood there. Looking at her, looking at the child she held in her arms. It might kill him to make this choice, it might break him past repair. He knew it, too. It was there in his eyes, dark and golden and terrified as they held hers. She could see all his weakness there, in that moment, and knew he knew it too.

There was no help for it, though. Too late, too late by far. The heart was already chosen, had already been saved and already been sold. There was a child already in their arms. It was too late now for weakness to matter, and only strength to carry them through.

"Rumple," she said, reaching up to cup his cheek. "Tell me what you need, and I'll break a world to give it to you. You know that. If I have to tear out every heart in every land, I will. I can. So stop hiding. Stop running. Take your daughter, and tell me who I need to kill to keep her safe. All right?"

He didn't, for a second. He stood there trembling, mired in hope and cowardice, and was too weak to take her strength. For a moment, an endless, aching moment, while her heart stood ready to hate him for it. But then ...

"... I need to find her brother," he said, his voice shaking with ancient grief and ancient fury. "I lost him, and I need to find him again. I need to bring him home, if I have to tear down every world there is in the process. Regina was supposed to help me. I was supposed to break her, and make her find the way. There's a curse. If I can't ... If she isn't ... He's in another world. One without magic. I can't get to it without her."

Cora raised her eyebrows at that. Part anger, for the secrecy, part jealousy, for another child and therefore another woman, part satisfaction, to know herself right at the end of it. He could not help but love his child. His children. She had been right about that. And she would be right about a great deal more again.

"Don't be stupid," she said, warm and vicious and strong. "You're the Dark One, my dear. There's nothing you can't do, nothing you can't _have_ , so long as you're willing to work for it. Futures are there to be made, my darling. If you can spin straw into gold, you can break the boundaries between worlds. Don't start bending now."

He laughed. Not the imp's giggle. A startled, wounded huff of a thing. There was a look in his eyes, so dazed and so amazed. He touched her cheek with his claws. He feathered his hand across their daughter's curls.

"I don't know, dearie," he whispered. "I don't know if I can. There are rules. Magic always comes with a price. But you ... I can't lose you. Her. Not again. I can't lose my wife and child again. I can't bear it."

Cora curled her lip into a smile, the heart she'd sold her power for throbbing brightly in her chest. "Then don't," she said, with confident pride. "Have us, keep us, keep us safe. Have it all, and rules of magic be damned. Go to another world and bring me back a child. I promised you one and delivered. Will you tell me the Dark One will do less?"

His lips split to bare mossy teeth, a fierce, delighted grin. He stepped forward, tugged her close against his chest, Regina awake now and squalling between them. Rumple ignored that, save to shift slightly and give her space to cry more freely. His eyes were still Cora's. His eyes were only hers.

"I can't kiss you anymore," he said softly, nonsensically, and only smiled oddly when she cocked a questioning eyebrow. "True love's kiss, dearie. Power is a curse. Not really a risk while I planned to destroy our daughter, but now ... It wasn't supposed to happen like this. I never meant to love you. I can't risk it. I need my power to fetch us both a child. Can't lose that, just for loving you. Not yet. Have to find my boy before I put my heart wholly in your hand." He paused, that weak, mewling thing inside him coming briefly to the fore. "Will you wait for it? Can you wait until I find my boy? It might take ... a long time."

Cora snorted at that. At the weakness of it, the trembling terror. He was too strong for that. He needed to remember that, her Dark One. He needed to remember his strength, if they were to have any hope at all.

"Your heart is mine, Rumpelstiltskin," she told him, in that cause. "It's mine, and I have never let go of what belongs to me. If it takes all eternity, rest assured that I will come for it. No matter where it hides, or what world it travels to." She smiled, curled her hand into gentle claws beside his cheek. "It won't take as long as you fear. You're not that slow or that helpless, my dear. You have all the power in the world, and all the reason to use it. Be quick. Find your boy. You don't want our daughter to grow up without a father."

He stared at her, something awesome, something _terrible_ in his eyes. Something rich and fierce and full of the ending of worlds, the power and the fury that she had fallen in love with from the start. He looked at her, her beloved Dark One, and slowly nodded his head.

"We don't want that," he agreed, sly and singsong and fierce. "You're right, you're right, we don't want that. Don't worry, dearie. I'll be quick." He giggled, all the bright, giddy malice of the imp, his eyes shining with his love. "Worlds to break. Futures all gone. Might have to do something ... drastic. More drastic than I planned. Things could get ... interesting."

Cora bared her teeth at him, at the world, her savage heart climbing into her throat, Regina heavy and wonderful in her arms. She pushed back the urge to take his lips, to bite and taste her way into his mouth and find his own heart waiting there. Later, later. Power first, and then the heart. She'd known that too, back then. She'd known the right choice, even as she'd made the wrong one. But then, perhaps, it was only a matter of patience. Of time, until the wrong became the right, and the right could be taken in its turn. Perhaps, with a little patience, power and hearts were not so mutually exclusive after all. As she'd told him, even. Just exactly as she'd said.

Futures were there to be made. Let them have it all, then, and the rules of magic be damned.


End file.
